i knew my weakness (so hold my hand)
by Sassassin
Summary: Sometimes, going the extra mile means more than just achieving your goal. Sometimes, it means everything.


**tagging: **Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Ronnie Raymond, Felicity Smoak, Caitlin Snow, Iris West. (_in this chapter, expect more to come!_)  
><strong>timeframe: <strong>school year 2014-2015 (and probably a bit beyond).  
><strong>setting: <strong>Central City, and the greater California area + ventures to other states.  
><strong>themes: <strong>friendship, romance, rivalry, coming of age.  
><strong>rating: <strong>T for now, _will _venture into M later.  
><strong>disclaimer: <strong>I own none of the characters, settings, etc. etc. No copyright infringement intended, yada yada.

_Whoa, it has been a long time since I've posted anything on FF. *dusts off account*_  
><em>After watching the crossover episodes I was super inspired for this story and decided I had to write it, even if I have a few projects going on and finals coming up. Hit me in the face if it takes me too long to update.<br>This is also my first **Arrow**/**The Flash**-inspired fic, so be gentle with me._

_That being said, I hope you enjoy!_

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><p>Senior year! Se-ni-or year! Cisco drummed his fingers on the table.<p>

The room he was in, on the second floor of Central City High School, had gradually become his home away from home over the past two years.

But it wasn't _really _that until his friends were there to fill the empty space up with their banter, practicing, and laughter – and they were taking **forever**!

Once upon a time, all young Cisco Ramon had wanted to do was survive high school—get through in one piece. He knew his interests didn't line up neatly to those of the general public, and he was too smart to fool himself into believing a miracle would happen.

Freshman year he kept to himself. There were a few incidents of bullying, but it was okay, he could handle them. His grades weren't everything they could be; however still impressive, especially counting in he had taken to reading comics during class. All went according to plan.

When he was a Sophomore, a miracle _did _happen. Or destiny. Or his cosmically good karma finally cashed in.

Because Felicity Smoak transferred to his school. There had been nothing in his plans of a blonde genius not only dragging him out of hiding, anonymity and laziness, but also turned him from a one man wolf pack to a two man wolf pack and then—Barry Allen, Felicity's boyfriend; Iris West, Barry's adoptive sister; and Caitlin, Felicity's lab partner. Suddenly, they were a _group_. Of friends.

Cisco had never really had friends before.

There were stray couches that had seen mid-finals naps and impromptu sleepovers, tables that had proven perfectly capable of holding big stacks of books, a vintage chalkboard on wheels that screeched like something possessed when they tried to move it, and every inch of the walls was covered with posters and maps. It was everything a bunch of geektastic friends needed as their hang-out.

But it wasn't _just _their hang-out. What school would it be if they _just _handed out unused class rooms for every rag tag bunch of people needing to stay out of the stream of students.

No, if you compared CCHS's Academic Decathlon team and his group of friends, you would have a 100% match.

The one person in his life that hadn't been Felicity's doing was Ronnie. To be eligible for competition they had needed a sixth member, and one with a GPA below 3. Ronnie had been a rather pleasant surprise.

(To be fair, that was kind of Felicity's doing as well. Maybe she hadn't brought him in herself, but pulling the Academic Decathlon team out of a ten-year-retirement _had _been her idea.

What a girl.)

He thumbed through the files in the manila folder in his lap. While in Sophomore year he had finally put in _some _effort, it wasn't until Junior year that he felt confident enough in this new arrangement of unitary alignment that he showed his true capacity. His GPA reached 4 with the results of his Junior finals.

And so, he was no longer allowed to compete as a Scholastic decathlete, an Honors one instead—that wasn't a _bad _thing, hell, he was proud. But that _did _mean they had to pick a new member to fill the slot.

As per USAD regulations, each team had to have at least six members, two with a GPA between 3.75 and 4 (Honors), two with a GPA between 3 and 3.74 (Scholastic), two with a GPA of 2.99 or below—they had Barry, Felicity and now Cisco as Honors, Caitlin as Scholastic, and Ronnie and Iris as Varsity.

He wasn't necessarily happy having to look for a new member. Things were good as they were. _But_, he had to remind himself of this: they **needed **a new member. So he could suck it up. He could suck it up for the rest of senior year, as long as it meant they could compete and finally try to beat the three consecutive times national champions, the Granada Hills High School Charter school of California.

Just thinking about them made him angry.

Cisco swiped to unlock his phone and found no messages waiting for him. It was well past seven am, and they _still _weren't there. He opened the Facebook app to see if he had missed something in their group chat last night, but nothing spoke of anyone coming in late.

He let his head fall back against the couch.

This wasn't only the first day of school (no matter it only truly began at 8.30), but he had been gone all summer. It had been an amazing summer. He had spent it with his father, who was stationed in Alaska to do research on radionuclides. The sky might have been perpetually overcast on Amchitka Island and it might not have seemed like a Californian summer, it had been kickass to look at his father's work and get to do father-sonly things with him every once in a while.

But he had missed his friends. He hadn't seen them since late June. In fact, it had been since his _birthday_, an epic party of video games, pizza and nachos, and chilled root beer with scoops of ice cream. They had kept in touch through texts, calls, Facebook and Skype but it wasn't the same.

"_Come aaaaaahn_."

He felt an incredible need to dramatically throw the folder through the air and pout, but _that _would be a sight for his friends to enter to, so he didn't. Instead he played with the frayed hem of his Captain America shirt and blew dark locks of hair out of his sight whenever they dared to obstruct vision.

And then—voices. His heart lurched with excitement when he picked up Barry's voice, and then Felicity's next. He jolted from the couch, his files falling to the floor but _whatever_, and all but flung the door open. There they were—it hadn't been just Barry and Felicity, they had simply been the loudest. Iris and Caitlin trailed behind them, arm in arm, wide smiles and seemingly a lot to talk about.

"Finally!" he exclaimed and all eyes were on him.

"Cisco!" Barry rushed to hug his best friend and Cisco happily complied, squirming in the death lock that took his breath, patting the excitable kid on the back.

Felicity came to him next, ruffling through his hair like she had a habit to before settling in his embrace, head resting on her shoulder because yeah, maybe he had grown a couple inches over the summer, not that he had measured that every day or anything.

She smelled like she always did, apple and vanilla, and it was so comforting that even in their time apart, at least that hadn't changed.

Caitlin usually preferred a healthy bit of distance but she held him nonetheless—seemed like she had had a growth spurt as well, _no fair!_—and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze in parting.

Iris was a big fan of hugging and drew it out almost as long as Barry had before she stepped back and clapped her hands, a thousand watt grin lighting up the shadowy corridor. "We made it to senior year!"

That warranted a round of applause and excited giggles before Cisco ushered his friends into the room with an eye roll and a tap on his iWatch. "Seriously people, how am I supposed to work with you?"

"Who died and made you captain?" Caitlin asked, eyebrow quirked, and he ducked around her to get to most coveted seating spot, the left end of the fuzzy green couch. Plopped down, he began scooping up the papers.

Amicable chatter welled up around him again, Iris telling Caitlin in person about the great trip to New York she had made with Barry and Felicity, while the couple in question, respective co-captains of the team as well, had gone off to do separate things—Felicity was writing the curriculum on the blackboard, though they had known it and memorized it since May of the year before; Barry pulled his laptop out of his bag and was setting up—but that didn't stop them from having a conversation from across the room.

He sidled up to Felicity and took a piece of chalk, using the other half of the blackboard to write down a few crucial dates: their first district competitions, the invitation to the Granada Hills High School society function (pompous much?) and the deadline by which they had to relay their full roster to the California coordinator.

He put exclamation marks behind the latter for good measure.

Cisco noticed his mistake of wiping his hands on his jeans again, something he thought he'd learned not to do the year before, white stripes of chalk in sharp contrast with his black jeans, and it earned him a few chuckles from across the room.

"Ha ha, laugh at poor ole' Cisco, won't you?" he puffed, giving the blackboard a swing so that it spun vertically for a good while. It was still spinning when a minute later Ronnie stumbled into the class room, toothy grin in place and carrying a cardboard carrier with steaming cups of Jitters coffee.

"Hero!" Felicity exclaimed and with that, life clicked back into place.

Cisco had a hard time containing his excitement.

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><p><em>Let me know what you're thinking. Yas or nah? Are we digging it?<em>


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